Thursday, October 29, 2009

A letter to a conservative friend from 2005

While rummaging through the My Documents folder, I found this old letter that I wrote to a college friend of mine who was a Bush supporter. What I find interesting about this letter is that the sentiments I expressed when I wrote it, in early 2005, still accurately reflect my beliefs. As the nature of the Bush administration continues to slowly come to light, I find that all the fears and revulsion I felt back then are being validated.

Hey, Mark.

I'm finally starting to get over the heartbreak of the election. But mark my words: someday the people of this country will realize the magnitude of the mistake it made in allowing Bush to be in the Oval Office.

The corruption in this administration goes up to the highest levels. I don't know how long it will take, with a Republican congress, but eventually the truth will come out about Halliburton, the Carlisle Group, Bechtel, Enron, and all the rest.

The morality of this administration is utterly non-existent. They played up wedge issues (homosexual marriage, abortion, religion in government) for honorable people, like you, for whom those issues are very important. But those issues really don't matter to them. The issues that matter to them are the acquisition of resources and power. That's all they care about, and if they can use the wedge issues to get good people like you behind them, they will. Further, they will smear anyone that dares to denounce them: Richard Clark, former Treasury Secretary John Snow, General Eric Shinseki, and John Kerry. (By the way, if you believe that John Kerry's medals are not merited, can you tell me how many of the medals that are awarded are for real? Or are they all hoaxes? And, if that's the case, why should there be any honor associated with them at all?) But the cruelest of all their campaign ploys was to unleash Ariel Sharon on the Palestinians in the hopes that they could pick up a sliver of the Jewish vote.

They are ruthless killers. No matter what anyone in (or out) of the administration says, the war in Iraq was unjustified. In order to fulfill their power schemes, they unleashed the hell of war on the people of the world. Furthermore, they are so lustful for power that they ignored even the hard-won rules of engagement, hammered out by centuries of warfare, by torturing prisoners.

They have no respect for the Constitution. Although the courts rejected their most extreme proposals, they have held American citizens without access to attorney. (American citizens, Mark!)

I know you don't think Bush is all that great, but I'm here to tell you, "You ain't seen nothin' yet." These guys are corrupt to the bone.

Bush a Christian? Maybe, but only in its most blood-thirsty and hypocritical form The despair in the faces I saw around Portland after the election is gone. People are angry. I really dread the future.